This little beauty, once you’ve added the bookmark to your browser allows you to open a JavaScript Shell for any page you happen to be on! The shell lets you enter JavaScript from command-line to manipulate the page, trigger functions, analyze properties, etc. All libraries that the site has loaded are available within the Shell…so, if you use jQuery or some other toolkit, all defined functions and plugins are usable.

One of my must have extensions for firefox has a new version out! Firebug, if you don’t already know, is an Ajax/layout/javascript troubleshooter and is extremely well developed. In version 0.4, Firebug steps beyond the bounds of being a troubleshooter and can now be considered a full fledged debugger. Its new features include:

As many well know, I am a huge advocate for Firefox. As a user, I like it for a few reasons; its consistent across platforms, tabbed browsing, fairly secure, skinable, and last but not least…extensibile.

The extensibility of the god of browsers is where things really shine for me as a developer…a web application developer. There are two that I use religiously for Javascript debugging, DOM inspecting, CSS tweaking, source viewing, Ajax calls, etc. Here they are. Get them. Use them. You’ll crap your pants.

The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

FireBug is a new tool that aids with debugging Javascript, DHTML, and Ajax. It is like a combination of the Javascript Console, DOM Inspector, and a command line Javascript interpreter.

Other fun features:

* XMLHttpRequest Spy – Ever wonder what all them newfangled Ajax websites are up to? Watch the requests fly by in the console!

* One web page, one console – Tired of slogging through a zillion errors in the JavaScript Console trying to find the one you want? The FireBug console is built into the bottom of the browser, and only shows you errors and log messages that came from the page you’re looking at.

* JavaScript Error Status Bar Indicator – It’s a sin that Firefox doesn’t include this by default, like IE does. When there is an error in the page, the status bar will let you know with a big red blob.

* Logging for web pages – Sick and tired of “alert debugging”? Jealous of all your C programmer buddies with their fancy printf? Now you can log text and objects to the FireBug console from any web page. See my website for more info on this.